Brett Dennen

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As common and simple as it is, "por favor" is such an evocative expression. From Spanish, it translates to "please," a word that suggests a need for something, a desire to make a change. "Por favor' was something I kept saying every day in the studio, and I got the other musicians saying it," says Brett Dennen. "We were goofing around, and Dave Cobb, my producer, said it should be the title of my new record. I laughed it off at first, but then I really thought about it.""When you say please, you're asking something to come into your life," Dennen adds. "It might mean that you're weak and need something to make you strong. But you're admitting to some sort of weakness or some form of humility."That notion is at the heart of Por Favor, Dennen's intimate and revealing new album that Elektra Records will release on May 20. Produced by Cobb, fresh from his Grammywinning work with Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell, the record strips Dennen to his core as a songwriter with nothing to hide."All these songs came from a time of sadness for lots of different reasons. They came at a point when I wasn't feeling confident about myself," he says. "When I'm not feeling confident, I'm not a nice person to be around. I don't take care of my health, my relationships, my stuff, and it all cycles into a miserable place. And I have a really hard time admitting that I'm in that place."A followup to 2013's Smoke and Mirrors, his sixth studio album dives deep into loneliness, loss, and love and all its side effects. It's the sound of an artist working through his insecurities in song, and thereby letting go of them. But it's by no means a sad affair, nor is it the "rainyday record" Dennen initially thought he was making.Often framed by uplifting choruses and bright acoustic arrangements, these songs brim with optimism, the palpable sense that the tide is turning. "And I want to love you for the way you are/ Not the way I am/ So let's go now/ Back to the bonfire where we began," he sings over a chugging groove on "Bonfire."On "Where We Left Off," the album's emotional powder keg, Dennen lays himself bare over the slack strum of guitar and one of his most unvarnished vocals ever recorded. The opening lines go straight for the jugular: "Everyone knows I'm a happy man/ But I haven't been right.""Vulnerable was another word that kept coming up when I was making this record," Dennen admits. "Is there something I'm scared to say? Can I dig a little deeper, reveal a little bit more? How far can I go That was my direction, and once I got that in place, I started shooting down things that weren't in that zone.""I kept telling myself that all I have to do is be authentic and make the songs about the lyrics and how they interact with my guitar," he continues. "I don't have to worry about whether they'll be on the radio or if they're different from my previous stuff."Holed up at Cobb's Nashville studio, with musicians the producer assembled, Dennen and Cobb worked fast and kept the songs rough around the edges. Dennen appreciated Cobb's insistence on capturing them in just a few takes. "We recorded it the way people made records in the '60s - really fast, all on analog gear, very few rehearsals," he says. "We didn't do anything more than five times. We didn't secondguess ourselves - we just went with it. It's not sloppy, but it's in that right place between loose and tight and feelgood but not labored."Cobb adds, "I worked with Brett because of his beautiful balance of wit and melody. He's very timeless in his writing and you really can hear his personality in every note he sings. The record was made totally live and we recorded all the vocals live with the band. It really was produced as stopped down as possible - we tried to make every note matter."More than a decade after his selftitled debut catapulted him to stardom, Dennen was once again attracted to how he made his earliest recordings. "My whole approach was that I wanted to write and sing the songs from the same place that I wrote the first record, which was a place of trying to discover who I am," he says.That marked a detour from his most recent releases. With those he felt like he was exercising his craftsmanship - "being a songwriter for the sake of being a songwriter," as he puts it. "I really wanted this new album to come across as a whole piece," Dennen says. "I consider it to be a batch of songs that all live together and complement each other."Which brings us back to the album title. Please."What was I asking for with this album" Dennen says. "I wanted to be a good person and feel good about myself again, but in a way that I knew it was OK to be sad. That's part of life, the ups and downs. But with these songs, I want to make people feel good about themselves and about life through the good and bad."

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Brett Dennen:
Dennen’s wunderkind rise has been impressive. In 2004 Dennen released his self-titled debut, followed quickly by his sophomore LP So Much More (2006,) which spent months on the Billboard Heatseeker chart. The release drew the attention of John Mayer, for whom Dennen opened in 2006 and 2007. In 2008 the artist released his follow-up, Hope for the Hopeless, which debuted at #41 on the Billboard Top 200 and firmly established Dennen as a definitive new voice in modern songwriting. He’s worked with Femi Kuti, Natalie Merchant, and Jason Mraz; he’s toured with Dave Matthews, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and The John Butler Trio; and he’s played Bonarroo, Austin City Limits, Coachella, Outside Lands, and Newport Folk Festival. He’s also become the go-to guy for some of the best and most artfully soundtracked contemporary TV shows. His songs have appeared on Scrubs, Grey’s Anatomy, Parenthood, Brothers & Sisters, and House among others.

Considering his bold-name collaborators, association with hot TV shows, and impressive early chart and radio success, Brett Dennen could be living in the Hollywood hills, gallivanting around with starlets and hanging out in hotel bars. Nope. The bohemian artist, whose major in college was Community Studies for Social Change, lives with a roommate in Santa Monica and rides his bike to the grocery store. Dennen has never been into the ephemeral thrills of the rock star life, he’s after something else: a real career.

Dennen first started playing guitar and mandolin to amuse the kids while working as a camp counselor. Once Dennen got the feel for writing his own material, he couldn’t stop. “It was suddenly like, I kind of need to do this,” he remembers.

Dennen spent the next few years touring, and it wasn’t until December of 2009 that he had a chance to think about a fourth record. “I had two weeks off from the road, my housemate and I built a studio in our living room and we made demo versions of a bunch of songs,” he remembers. “The plan was to crank this album out in early 2010.

The extra time Dennen took making Loverboy had another unforeseen benefit; instead of touring around the world, Dennen was, for the first time in a while, really home in Los Angeles. With no bus to climb on first thing in the morning, no soundcheck to worry about, he started reconnecting with his most basic (and precious) feeling about music: joy. “People get this amazing opportunity to play music but after a while they figure out their routine and they stop going out to see music live, they stop listening to the radio, they stop exploring music,” he muses. “I go out and I see live music and I love it and I try to jam with people or just get out and play in a bar somewhere, just to be out and be involved and be a part of something.”

Which is exactly what Denen has been doing in the years since the release of Loverboy. In fact, he’s touring right this minute and will continue to bring his fans and intimate live music experience through the release of his fifth album, Smoke and Mirrors in late October 2013. People have already been enjoying the first hit single off of the album, “Wild Child”, and can’t wait to see what Dennen has been cooking up during his time on the road.